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Venice (WOD)
Venice is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 117 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and Piave Rivers. Vampire: The Masquerade Venice is famed in Kindred circles as the headquarters of the Giovanni Clan, and everyone, from Camarilla Justicars over Anarch revolutionaries to Sabbat Archbishops, is forced to respect that claim , although some would challenge this arrangement . While the Giovanni have been native to the city since the time of the Lombard kings that first established the city , it was previously a center of the Cainite Heresy and under Lasombra dominion . Only after the diablerie of Cappadocius and the Promise of 1528 was the city officially ceded to the Clan, while the Inner Circle maintained their right to use the city as a neutral venue for their meetings and regular Conclaves. The central hub of vampiric activity in Venice is the Mausoleum, rumored to be the resting place of Augustus Giovanni himself. A skyscraper made out of black glass and steel, it is thinly veiled as a bank. Each Giovanni is encouraged to tithe a certain percentage of his earnings to the Mausoleum, either in money or in souls Other Kindred find that they are not welcomed in Venice, and that they are shadowed and spied upon from hostile eyes hidden from their senses. No single leader, no Prince, claims Venice, the boasts of the Camarilla to the contrary. Rather, the job of ensuring the smooth functioning of the city falls to a select group of ancillae and relatively young elders, as Augustus and the eldest Giovanni have far too much to do worrying about clan activities worldwide. Although no concerted effort to keep all other vampires out of the city has been undertaken, the clan makes no secret of the fact that an outside vampire attempting to seize undue influence or power within Venice will meet with a very swift death – possibly followed by an eternity of servitude. On occasion, Ventrue visit the city for business affairs , and the city is home to a large Nosferatu population that lurks within the sewers, but this colony has been driven out from their ancient warren in the Poveglia by the 1980s through an unknown creature and faces persecution by the Giovanni. Rumors tell that Premascines, Giovanni that were embraced before 1444 by the Cappadocians, live in the sunken parts of Venice, guarding their territory jealously against intruders. Werewolf: The Apocalypse Venice has no native Garou population, the Giovanni have seen to that. The Glass Walkers have an understanding with the Clan that they leave the city alone in exchange for information about Pentex activities . No other Fera are reported to have made their residence in the city. Mage: The Ascension The current number of mages within Venice is not known. In the past, however, it was a major hub for the Order of Reason during the Renaissance and Sh'zar of the Seers of Chronos once passed through the city, when he gathered the ecstatic sects before the Grand Convocation , so it is not too far fetched to believe that both the Cult of Ecstasy and the Technocratic Union maintain a presence within the city. Wraith: The Oblivion The Necropolis of Venice is nearly entirely under Giovanni control, with the ancient loggia as their headquarter where thousands of wraiths are chained in manacles or moliated by wraithly overseers under Giovanni orders, awaiting whatever their masters demand of them. While the wraithly prison was briefly damaged during the Sixth Maelstrom , p.39, the situation was quickly again under control, thanks to the involvement of Augustus. Changeling: The Dreaming Venice is part of the Galacian Confederation, of the Province of Venezia. The local Commoners are known to be rather laid back, even tolerating visiting Nobles. , p.49 Kindred of the East Rumors tell that the Giovanni have admitted an ambassador of the Blood Court of Beijing in the Mausoleum, in recompensation for the privileges of the della Passaglia family in Kuei-jin territory.KOTE: Shadow War, p. 95 Hunter: The Reckoning The Society of Leopold maintains a Cenaculum in the city . The Imbued are aware of the danger Venice poses to them, as many of their numbers who have traveled here have vanished in the canals and their corpses were later found in the marshes. References Category:Vampire: The Masquerade geography Category:Cities (WOD)